AnthroTek, a Cambridge-based synthetic anatomy startup, has closed a £950,000 seed round at a £10.5 million pre-money valuation, achieving this milestone without the assistance of a single law firm. Instead, the company turned to Genie AI’s contract automation platform to handle everything from shareholder agreements to subscription documents, a move that slashed legal costs by 90 per cent.
The raise is part of £1.15 million already secured, with another £550,000 expected over the next 12 months, as AnthroTek co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Nazmus Tareque shares with TFN.
Once that tranche closes, AnthroTek is forecasting its valuation will climb to about £12 million. It is the first time a UK startup has executed a seed round completely through Legal AI, and the shift highlights how quickly automation is creeping into one of the most entrenched, fee-heavy parts of the startup ecosystem.
Tareque adds, “We completed a complex set of documents in a fraction of the usual time, and with minimal to zero external legal spend with Genie AI. I know that many founders are frustrated by the current legal fee system. My background as a graduate in law helped give me the confidence to do things differently. The market will show no loyalty to traditional legal services if AI systems keep generating more value for the dollar spent. Why should it?”
Founders with complementary skills
AnthroTek was founded in 2024 by Tareque, an Oxford law graduate with 13 years of experience in business growth and commercialisation, and Dr. Raoul Peltier, a materials scientist with 15 years of experience, 37 published papers, and a patent in nanotechnology and chemistry.
The company’s creation story sounds as Cambridge as it comes: the two met initially while Peltier was head of DNA synthesis at Evonetix, but the spark came later when Peltier started The Face Forge, a garage-based silicone prosthetics studio for film special effects.
One afternoon punting on the River Cam turned into business lunches and brainstorming sessions, eventually leading to the creation of AnthroTek. Within a year, the pair had raised capital, opened a workshop in Newmarket, built a six-person team, and secured contracts in Hollywood and the medical training sector.
Synthetic anatomy as a platform play
AnthroTek’s pitch goes beyond SFX. Its proprietary silicone composites and AI-driven 3D models replicate the texture and behaviour of human tissue with unprecedented fidelity. The company is building for three verticals: medical simulation (ethical, cadaver-free models for surgical training), SkinTech (sensor-embedded synthetic skins for robotics and haptics) and cinema prosthetics under The Face Forge.
The startup is entering markets with entrenched incumbents like Limbs & Things, TruCorp and Ultraleap, but differentiates itself with a multidisciplinary blend of material science, AI, and cinematic artistry.
What’s next?
AnthroTek’s roadmap is ambitious: to expand into the U.S. and Asia, double down on R&D collaborations with partners such as the University of Warwick and the University of Cambridge, and scale its manufacturing capacity. If the additional £550,000 closes as planned, the startup expects its valuation to rise to around £12 million.
For investors and founders, though, the real story may be the method: by eliminating £20,000+ in legal fees from the seed-round playbook, AnthroTek and Genie AI have just shown what an AI-first funding process could look like.
Rafie Faruq, Co-Founder and CEO of Genie AI, adds: “This is an incredible landmark in startup and business history. Startups all over the world no longer have to pay £20-30k to do their investment deals. These fees are ridiculous, especially when these lawyers are making minor tweaks to what are essentially standard templates.
By eliminating costly legal bottlenecks, AnthroTek has set a new standard for speed and trust in Legal AI for startup funding rounds. This is the future of startup financing.”
